A furious Armenia player launched a bottle in the direction of the assistant referee after he thought his side had conceded during their clash with Scotland.
Armenia travelled to Hampden Park for their second game of their Nations League campaign. They went into the match having won their opener against the Republic of Ireland, sitting top of League B Group 1.
But it was a horror opening 45 minutes for the visitors, who conceded twice and saw a third Scotland goal ruled out. Anthony Ralston opened the scoring just before the half-hour mark when he delivered a thumping header at the far post from Stuart Armstrong's cross.
Scott McKenna doubled his side's lead just 12 minutes later when he got in front of his marker to power in a header from John McGinn's corner. Nottingham Forest star McKenna thought he had scored again three minutes into injury time, provoking huge controversy.
McGinn took a corner short to Andy Robertson, who lifted a cross into Harry Souttar. Souttar nodded it on to McKenna who saw a header crash off the crossbar before he eventually tapped it in.
Referee Sebastian Gishamer singled for a goal, despite Armenia protesting heavily that McKenna had been offside. Gishamer and his linesman ignored those calls at first though, leaving the visitors furious.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Should Arman Hovhannisyan have been sent off for throwing a bottle at the linesman? Comment below.
Left-back Arman Hovhannisyan was left so angry that he picked up a bottle from behind the pitch and launched it in the direction of the linesman. Luckily, the official was already running back towards the halfway line, with the bottle missing him.
Despite the clear video evidence of Hovhannisyan throwing the bottle, the Video Assistant Referee did not bring it to Gishamer's attention. That inaction left former Scotland internationals Alan Hutton and James McFadden furious.
"I didn't even notice that. You can't be doing that, that's poor. He's [McGinn] clearly seen that and the thing is you see players get frustrated and fling things off the ground and whatever, but that's in the direction of the linesman. You shouldn't be getting away with that. That's terrible and he should be getting punished for that," Hutton told Premier Sports.
"You can seen John McGinn there, John McGinn's reaction, he's got his right hand up to say, he's thrown it. That is incredible, to even think about picking a bottle up, throwing it towards the official and to get away with it. We have VAR, cameras everywhere, they should be looking at that," McFadden added.
Ironically, the VAR did overrule Gishamer on the decision to award McKenna's second goal. They ruled that the defender had drifted into an offside position when he put his first header off the bar, ruling it out.
Hovhannisyan would stay on the pitch for the rest of the game, in what was his eighth cap at senior international level. The 28-year-old is currently a free agent after leaving Armenian Premier League side Pyunik Yerevan in May.
